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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Irodori

The Sister had dined at this Japanese buffet previously with her boyfriend, and I remember that she couldn't stop waxing lyrical about the food. A few weeks ago, when we were craving Japanese, she immediately suggested Irodori. Good food. And at affordable rates too. Those were the words that prompted Daddy to make reservations for lunch at the place.

Irodori

When we arrived at our reservation time, the place was mostly empty, except for a family of three sitting at the bar counter right in front of the chef. Dad commented that the place seemed a tad...quiet. Hmmmm. Anyway, we we were seated. And while perusing the menu, the waitress placed individual portions of cold tofu appetiser in front of everyone.

Cold tofu appetiser; Chilled soba

Silken soft tofu that glided smoothly down my throat. Ah. That was a good sign of more goodness to come...

Yakiniku beef; Grilled saba; Pumpkin croquette; Garlic fried rice

As we were having the buffet at Irodori, all the portions were really small and thus we kept ordering tons. In fact, you can specify how many portions you want for a dish (say, two bowls of fried rice, two pieces of croquette or sashi platter for five...). The beef was okay, the saba was awesome (I'm a saba convert), the pumpkin croquette was done up nicely, deep fried to crunchy crumbs on the exterior, with soft pumpkin filling inside. The garlic fried rice was not bad too, I tried a little bit cos we ordered that quite late into our meal and most of us were already stuffed full of other goodies.

Sister had a slight prawn allergy, but she couldn't resist the above mayo roe prawns. The mayo drizzling on the sushi on the other hand, was overkill. Too much of a good thing CAN be a bad thing at times.

Unagi and tobiko sushi

What's Japanese food without Unagi? I gobbled down my share happily and eyed the other morsels on the plate greedily...As I wasn't a fan of tobiko, they were duly ignored by yours truly.

Pumpkin tempura

I must say that the all the vegetable tempuras we ordered were really good. Crisp. Check! Piping hot. Check! Flavourful. Check! Non greasy. Check! Addictive like crack. Double check! We ordered the tempura several times cos they were just so good.

We did eat other stuff too, which I didn't capture, but it seemed rude to keep taking photos while everyone was tucking in. Thus, I tried my best to snap a picture fast whenever a new dish arrived on the table, then started tucking in like everyone else (of course, after checking that my photograph is okay...).

Oh, and the place filled up pretty fast. Like within half an hour or so after we had started eating, the rest of the lunch customers started streaming into the restaurant. By the time we were more or less stuffed to the brim, the place was packed. Luckily we had made reservations...I like the fact that we arrived ahead of the crowd, cos that means our food were prompt and fresh/hot. :)

I really recommend the Irodori buffet as like the Sister said, it was decent food, and not too pricey either. I feel that for the prices they charge, the quality of the food is considered quite good.